


but with the mind

by AslansCompass



Category: Sapphire and Steel
Genre: Big Finish Audios, Gen, cruel immortality
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-28
Updated: 2019-08-28
Packaged: 2020-09-28 16:16:07
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 577
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20428808
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AslansCompass/pseuds/AslansCompass
Summary: "love looks not with the eyes, but with the mind."--A Midsummer Night's Dream, William Shakespeare"You are always here to me. And I always listen, and I can always see you. "--The Doctor to River Song, "The Name of the Doctor"Steel should have known. He should have recognized her sooner.  The eyes can lie. But the soul doesn't. (Cruel Immortality)





	but with the mind

**Author's Note:**

> Yes, I've already written a Cruel Immortality fic (enthropy). so?

Why had he been so blind? He’d known from the start something was wrong at Tithonus Hall, but he had let  _ emotions _ blunt his core skills. The unnatural aging (lack of, to be precise), the frozen time--it all should have pointed him in only one direction. The Transcients. 

Instead, he’d wasted time sharing pieces of his own past. Loneliness, regret, weariness. Those were  _ human  _ traits. Even then, he should have seen it. Sapphire would have, if their roles were reversed. Her telepathy was stronger and subtler than his; she could read strange lifeforms with greater ease than he could read her.

But the picture in her hands--Christmas 1949, four hundred twelve years ago--

**She didn’t have a carer.**

Her shadow--the deGrey effect--no, he had it all wrong.

She’s the shadow. 

This elderly woman, sitting here, trying to persuade him that human life, human traits, were worth emulating--this isn’t Sapphire at all. Just a copy.

And the real Sapphire--his partner--

He barely hears the shadow’s pleas. “Where is she? Where’s the real Sapphire?”

It shivers in pain.

He hears a horn in the distance. “The hunt. Of course!”

* * *

“Time to say nighty-night, beastie!”

“No.” His voice is sharp as his name. “Get away from her. What do you think you’re doing?”

“Nothing that concerns you.”

“None of your business, old man.”

“The beast?”

“She is my business.” He doesn’t bother looking at them. “Leave her alone.” 

He takes a step forward. “Can you hear me? Look at me. Look into my eyes.” (I’m here now. I know it’s you. I should have known sooner. I should have worked it out.)

The beast pants for breath. 

Steel closes his eyes, not to block his vision but to clear it. This… creature… this being, it never was mortal. Nothing mortal could have survived such injuries. No scientist’s creation or child’s nightmare would have taken this form.

How does it appear to them? The carers: what do they see when they put their hands in the steam vent, when they pursue the prey through the grounds? A bear? A wildcat? A shadow?

But no, he can’t consider that question now. He must focus. “You know who I am, don’t you?” (I know who you are. I know you. You’ve lost yourself. I remember you. Please, remember me.) It’s the same, in the end. They’ve worked together so long. They belong together. 

The breaths come more regularly now. Nobody’s chasing the creature, nobody’s hurting it, nobody’s screaming at it. Talking, that’s all.

familiar, somehow. 

voice. not them. 

Not pain.

knows. knows.

“su...huu... “ a word. 

Not screaming. Not pain. Noises. Good sounds. 

“Steel.” and again, testing the sound. “Steel.”

“Talk to me, Sapphire. Remember who you really are.” (sapphire, sapphire, sapphire.) Verbal communication is so clumsy, but it’s what she needs now, her way back from subconscious pain. “What you are.”

“Pain.” (they torture me...they hit me and shout at me and I’m screaming for help….)

He can’t tell if she’s speaking or sending--the senses blur together. He wants to de-guise, to discard these rough forms and hold her truly. But the task isn’t completed yet. “It’s over now, Sapphire. I’m here. I won’t let them hurt you anymore.”

(no one will hurt you again.)*

*that’s a lie, he knows it’s a lie, and she knows it too. It’s their job to be hurt, to suffer. But for this moment, he truly means it.


End file.
